“That’s cruel,” she said, and pulled her hand away.
“Perhaps. Then, the following day I drove down even earlier and parked my car a ways off. With me I had my.44 revolver, an unwashed pair of trousers and shirt that I do my gardening in, and a suit of medieval armour from my collection.”
“My God,” Corinne said.
“I put on the armor, leaving one gauntlet off, so I could handle the revolver, and walked up to the trailer. The dogs heard me clanking, of course, and set up a howl, so by the time I reached the gate, Hunking was already out of his trailer and looking at me with his mouth open. The trap was not yet set, so I ambled in and pointed the gun at him, and told him to undress and put on my garden clothes. He didn’t argue. I had calculated that my appearance would give me a psychological superiority and it did. Once he was in my clothes, I kept the gun on him, and went over to set the dogs loose. They leapt at me, but slid off, and I think were scared of me too, because right away they turned around and went right for him. I watched, and after a while, I shot them, one by one...”
After he’d finished, Corinne sat for a long time without speaking. Then she rose and walked alone back down the hill.
Dinner that night was strained, so that Stoddard was forced to make comments about the weather to Hurk as he served, to relieve the tension. But later when they went to their room, Corinne said: “I didn’t mean to make you feel like a criminal, Francis. After all, you did fight for me, in your way.”
“I’d rather have you think so, my dear.”
“You trust me now, don’t you?”
“Not for a moment.”
“Then why did you—”
“I like to please you, if I can. And you wanted to hear.”
She kissed him at that, and trust or no trust, he kissed her back.
In the morning they had a pillow fight in bed, and he was like a boy again, laughing and shouting. Suddenly she said: “Young Francis, you say you like to please me. Would you do something for me now?”
“I’d love to, my dear.”
“Not every girl has a knight to fight for her. I’d like to see you as one.”
“You mean you want me to put on the suit of armor?” he asked surprised.
“I imagine you looked very chivalrous!”
“Why, I suppose I did, at that!” The idea suddenly appeared to please him, and he got out of bed. “Wait here, I’ll put it on for you.”
A few minutes later she heard a rattling in the hall, the door opened, and Francis came creaking in, encased in his metal suit, the helm scraping the lintel and jarring down the visor. They started laughing together, and laughed until they cried.
Then Corinne jumped up and went to the long mirror close to the low-skilled window.
“Stand over here, so you can see yourself,” she said, so he ambled over and took a warlike pose in front of the glass.
“You do look medieval!” she laughed prettily. “But you know, I think I like you better with your visor down!”
She slapped down the visor with a quick movement, then stepping back, gathered her weight and pushed him — straight at the window. He stumbled heavily, hitting the casement sideways with his epaulier; glass shattered, framework splintered, and, completely out of control, he swiveled so that as he fell backwards he was facing her. For several seconds his gauntleted hand held onto the casement sides, but the weight of the armor was pulling him back.
“Please, Corinne — pull me in!” he gasped behind his visor, and his voice echoed in the helm. “You can have the money, all of it you want.”
“You think I want the money!” she spit at him, prying at the fingers of his gauntlets. “You killed Herb, the man I loved! You fooled him, and I fooled you, and now you’re going to die!”
“I won’t die,” he gasped. “I’ve arranged to come back. You’ll see—!”
He lost his hold then, and disappeared. And when the sound, as of a multiple accident on a freeway, came up from the brick courtyard three floors below, Corinne had her eyes closed, and her lips stretched into a smile.
She found the note on the bed two nights later, on the eve of the inquest.
Corinne: (it read, and it was in Stoddard’s handwriting!)
I told you I did not trust you. You think you are rid of me, but think again. I had the last laugh on your dog man, and I shall have the last laugh on you, too. Wait and see.
With a cry of horror, Corinne hurried out into the hallway and downstairs to her maid’s room. But the girl was gone, her clothes and luggage, too.
“Hurk! Hurk!” She was screaming now, and running through the big house. But the factotum was gone, and so was the cook. She was alone.
She grabbed at a phone then to call a taxi to take her to a hotel in town. The line was dead.
Going to the front door, she flung it open and stared into the moonlit woods. Then she fled upstairs to her bedroom and locked herself in.
Quickly she searched the bathroom and closet to see that nobody had hidden there while she was gone, and she even looked under the bed. With trembling hands she poured a glass of brandy from Stoddard’s decanter to steady herself, and stood panting as the liquid burned down her throat.
She was pouring a second drink when she heard it — the clank of armor from down the hall. With an animal cry, she moved her dresser against the door, spilling bottles every which way, and then added chairs to the barricade.
The lights went off.
Like a wild thing, now, she pulled aside the drapes that covered the broken window, and the moonlight streamed in. She leaned out seeking a ledge on which she might step, but the height made her dizzy and she quickly withdrew.
Once again the clanking sounded, followed by a terrific blow, as from a mailed fist, upon the door.
“Go away — go away!” she sobbed.
But the blows came again and again, and then the splintering of wood. The lock snapped, and the barracade began moving into the room.
Muttering incoherently, she climbed backwards across the low sill.
Now it was in the room with her. She heard the heavy steps approach the window, and straightening up in panic, lost her balance.
She screamed once more, falling as the face came into the moonlight — Hurk’s heavy Hungarian face, and just before her head struck the bricks in the courtyard below, a seemingly vagrant thought wisped through her brain...
Of course a knight doesn’t get into his armor unassisted.
A Honey of a Homicide
by John Land
“Buzzards,” Hiram Talbott said, his voice dripping contempt. “All gathered around waiting — or is it hoping? — for me to die.” He let his arrogant gaze sweep along the line of dinner guests; most of them flushed or turned pale; a few stared back with frank hatred — these last were the ones who felt they had nothing to lose.
His wife, a thin, raddled woman who kept her hands fluttering breast high as if to ward off expected blows, made a feeble protest.
“Really, dear,” she twittered. “I know you don’t mean a word of it, but—”
He cut her short with a barking laugh.
“Oh, don’t I? Ask them — they know. Ali my loving relatives and prospective heirs, drooling at the thought of my millions. This is going to hurt them more than it does me, but hear this: the doctor says my heart attack was slight, and didn’t do much damage. If I’m careful, I can still make eighty or so. That means,” he added, with a tigerish smile, “another twenty-six years for them to wait. Of course, I could cross you all up, and leave my money to a college or hospital, but it’s more fun to watch your tongues hang out for good, long spell. And maybe I’ll spend it all by then — who can tell?”